Ml PITT, WILLIAM, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. 



riTTAcua 



Fox ; and the issue wa, tint in March IT'S Lord Sholburne and his 

 colleagues were driven from office by the united force of this new 

 opposition, nod a cabinet was formed, nomiimlly under the premier- 

 hip of the 1 'like of Portland, but in which the chief power was actu- 

 ally lodged in the handi of North and Fox, who were appointed 

 ncretaries of state. The alliance of Whigs and Tories however, which 

 had carried this victory, was now opposed by another body of similar 

 composition, formed by the Sliclburne Whigs and the Turies who, 

 weeding from North, professed themselves the friends and supporters 

 of the court, which was well understood to bear with impatience the 

 yoke of the new minUtry. Of this opposition Pitt was the recognisi d 

 leader in the House of Commons. Among other means to which he 

 had recourse with the view of damaging the government, was the 

 renewal of his motion for parliamentary reform. The effect, as had 

 been anticipated, was to array Fox and North against each other in 

 the debate and the division ; but the motion nevertheless was nega- 

 tived in rather a full house by a majority of nearly two to one. The 

 serious opposition to the government did not begin till the next 

 session, when Fox brought forward his India bill ; but even that 

 measure was carried through all its stages in the House of Commons 

 by great majorities, and only encountered a formidable resistance 

 when it reached the Lords, where the personal influence of the king 

 was exerted to procure its defeat. This object being attained, his 

 majesty, with his characteristic decision, followed up hia advantage by 

 dismissing Mr. Fox and Lord North, when they would not resign, and 

 by appointing Mr. Pitt prime minister, with the offices of first lord of 

 the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. This was in the middle 

 of December 1788. 



The state of parties was now very extraordinary, and gave rise to the 

 most remarkable contest in the history of parliament. In the House 

 of Commons the force of the opposition very considerably outnum- 

 bered that of the government, even after all the impression that the 

 influence of the crown had been able to make upon the ranks of the 

 former ; so that if the issue of the struggle had depended solely upon 

 that assembly, it could not have been doubtful or long deferred. But, 

 if Mr. Pitt hud the representatives of the nation against him, he had 

 decidedly the nation itself on his side, and with this, backed by the 

 support of the crown, hia position was impregnable, for, if it came to 

 the worst, a dissolution could in a moment put an end to the existence 

 of the present House of Commons, and secure another in accordance 

 with the prevailing popular feeling. Such an appeal to the people 

 however was for obvious reasons far from palatable to the crown, and 

 not to be resorted to if it could be avoided, although in this case the 

 circumstances were as favourable for such an experiment as they could 

 ever be expected to bo, the permanent body of the House of Lords, 

 whose union with the Commons might hare considerably strengthened 

 the latter, being already ministerial by a steady, though not a very 

 large majority. Theoretically, indeed, the crown might have made a 

 majority for iteelf in that branch of the legislature more directly than 

 in the other house; but practically, a creation of peers for such a 

 purpose would have been a more violent and unconstitutional measure 

 than a dissolution in any circumstances, and, ventured upon con- 

 temporaneously with a dissolution, would have been an unexampled 

 stretch of the prerogative, the effect of which would have been to 

 counteract all the good cflVcta that were to be hoped for from the 

 other expedient The policy which Mr. Pitt adopted was very 

 masterly, and it was carried out with a steadiness and courage which 

 would have been wonderful in the most veteran statesman. He did not 

 di'iwlve the parliament immediately, but first suffered the opposition 

 to waste their strength and damage themselves in the public opinion 

 to an infinitely greater extent thin over by a long succession of 

 infuriated and unavailing attempts to drive him from office ; and 

 then, when, after a battle which lasted for three months, he had 

 reduced their majority from between fifty and sixty to one, ho sent 

 them back to their several constituencies, to be one-half of them 

 rejected at a new general election. About ICO of them in fact! lout 

 their seaU, and were dismissed to private life, with little to console 

 them in their retirement except the name they received of ' Fox's 

 Martyrs.' 



Mr. Pitt's biography from this date is little else than the history of 

 the public aftairs of the kingdom so long as ho lived. He continue. 1 

 at the head of the ministry which this great victory bad established 

 in power, for about seventeen years a most eventful and important 

 period, io the course of which the relations of parties were altogether 

 changed, and this country and Europe were suddenly and violently 

 translated from a state of profound peaoe into the most general and 

 most convulsive war that bad been known in modern times. []!UMA- 

 rABTK, NAPOLEON L; HUKKE; GKORQE III.] The elder Pitt, as we 

 have seen in the last article, owes his chief fame as a minister to his 

 conduct of the war in which he found the country involved on his 

 fint accession to power; but it has been generally thought unfortu- 

 nate for his son's political reputation that ho should have been trans- 

 formed from a peace into a war minister. In | ->int of fact the nation 

 certainly continued to make a very steady economic progress during 

 the first nine peaceful jean of his administration, and the military 

 result* of the last eight were on the whole disastrous. During the 

 former period the trade of the kingdom waa estimated to have 

 increased by very nearly a third ; and in the five years from 1783 to 



1788, the revenue had received an augmentation of 5,000,000?., of 

 which not more than 1,600,OOOA, was calculated to have arisen from 

 new taxes. At the same time the expenditure was not great 

 1790 than it had been in 1784, being in both years under 1 1!,000,OOOJ. 

 The establishment of a new constitution for the East India Company 

 (1784), the establishment of a new sinking fund (17S6), the arrange- 

 ment of a commercial treaty with France on very liberal principles 

 (1786), the consolidation of the customs (1786), acts passed for the 

 relief of the Roman Catholics in England, Scotland, and Ireland 

 (1791, 1792), besides various minor measures for the suppression of 

 smuggling, were the administrative innovations that chiefly distin- 

 guished this period, and that were understood to owe their origin 

 mainly to the premier. In 1785 Mr. Pitt also once more brought 

 forward the subject of the amendment of the representation of the 

 people in parliament ; but he did not call in the aid of his authority 

 as minister to ensure the success of his motion, which was nep. 

 by a considerable majority, and which be never renewed. Afterwards, 

 when the question of reform was taken up by the Society of the 

 Friends of the People, and brought forward at their instance by Mr. 

 (afterwards Lord) Grey, the proposal found in Mr. Pitt one of its most 

 determined opponents. To the exertions that were now begun to be 

 made for the abolition of the slave trade, he lent the aid of his elo- 

 quence and of his own vote; but upon this question also he declined 

 to use his power or influence as the head of the government He took 

 much the same course in regard to the prosecution of Warren 

 Hastings, and the correction of the abuses of the Indian government. 

 All the measures, it may be observed, to which Pitt gave only this 

 kind of support, failed of success during his administration. 



One of the most remarkable of the contests and victories that 

 illustrate this first period of his government, occurred in the session 

 of 1788-89, when he successfully maintained against Mr. Fox the 

 right of parliament to supply the temporary defect of the royal 

 authority occasioned by the incapacity of the reigning king a right 

 which seems to be now received as an established doctrine of the 

 constitution. 



Almost the only memorable legislative measure of the latter years 

 of Mr. Pitt's first ministry was the union with Ireland, which was 

 effected iu 1799. It is now known that the disappointment of the 

 expectations which he considered himself entitled to entertain of 

 the abolition, or at least very great mitigation, of the penal and dis- 

 abling laws affecting the Roman Catholics, was the reason which he 

 assigned to the king for retiring from office soon after the pasting of 

 this measure. He and bis friends resigned in March 1801. 



For some time Mr. Pitt gave his support to the administration of his 

 successor Mr. Addington ; but when the rapidly growing com 

 of the inoompeteney of the new cabinet began to foretell its Bpiv.ly 

 downfall, he joined in the general cry against it, and the result v. .1 - 

 that, in May 1804, he became again prime minister. He remained at 

 the head of affairs till his death, on the 23rd of January 1806, the 

 consequence partly of a wasted constitution partly, it is generally 

 believed, of a broken heart. The overthrow of the new coalition 

 which he had succeeded in forming against Franco by the series of 

 successes achieved by that power in the latter part of the year 1805, 

 is supposed to have combined with the vexation arising from the 

 impeachment of his friend Lord Melville to destroy him. He had for 

 some years been accustomed to stimulate his overtaxed powers of 

 body and mind by a lavish indulgence in wine ; and this habit also 

 no doubt had its share in shortening hia days. 



Tho public bearing of Mr. 1 'it t was cold and lofty ; but he is said 

 to have unbent himself very gracefully among his intimate friends, 

 and the few who really knew him well seem to have been strongly 

 attached to him. Whatever were his faults, there was no meanness 

 in his character. As to the merits of his general system of adminis- 

 tration, opinion is still nearly as much divided sa ever. With regard 

 to the character of his oratory there la perhaps beginning to be a 

 more general agreement ; and we may venture to say, without incur- 

 ring tne chance of any very loud or extended dissent, that, in>; 

 and effective as it was at the moment of delivery, it owed its success 

 as much to the imprtssion which it made upon the ear, and to what 

 we may call its mere mechanical qualities, as to any diviu. r inspira- 

 tion. It wanted even the earnestness and occasional fire of his father's 

 eloquence; and of either splendour of imagination or any remarkable 

 depth or force of thought, it must bo admitted to have been utterly 

 destitute. Its highest quality appears to have been a power of sar- 

 casm, which was the proper expression of a nature like that of 1'itt, 

 cold, proud, nnd contemptuous, and having little sympathy either with 

 the ordinary vices and weaknesses, or with the better feelings and 

 enjoyment*, of his fellow-men. 



PI'TTACUS, one of the so-called seven wise men of Greece, waa 

 the son of Hyrradius, and born at Mityleue in the island of Lesbos, 

 about B.C. Oi'J. Nothing is known of his education and the early 

 part of his life, and the first facts which his biographer, Diogenes 

 Laertius, mentions are that, with the assistance of the brothers of 

 AJcicus, he delivered his native island from the tyranny of Melaii- 

 chrus (B.C. 612), and that when the Mityleneoaus were involved iu a 

 war with the Athenians about the possession of the town of Sigeum 

 on the Hellespont, Pittacus gained the victory over the Athenian 

 general Phryoon by a singular stratagem. He came into tho Cold 



